Today was a busy day! Since we parked last night in a WalMart, we got off to an early driving day today at about 6:30 am.

We arrived in Olympia, Washington's capital, about about an hour later. Driving in the RV and towing the Blazer was going to be a challenge finding a place to park. However, just as I exited the interstate about six blocks from the capital building, I noticed a Chevron station with a large parking lot. The building to the side looked like it was a former shop with three large bay doors. So I pulled in and asked the manager if we could park there while we visited the capital building. She said it would be fine. Great!

After unhooking the Blazer and pulling the motorhome out of the way, we were off.

Since it was still early when we arrived at the capital building, there weren't a whole lot of people there. We walked around inside and out. It was a nice capital with a lot of marble. There wasn't a museum area in this one. There was the original capital building a few blocks away, so I would assume they made it into the museum. We never made it over to it though.



We did however go across the street to the Washington Supreme Court building. After looking inside it for a few minutes we were greeted by the bailiff. He informed us that the court was going to be in session shortly and we were welcome to sit in and listen. So we hung out for a little while until 9:00 am when the judges came in and began the proceedings. It wasn't as dramatic as TV, but it was interesting. After hearing both arguments in the first case, they adjourned for a few minutes. At that time we left.

I hooked back up to the motorhome and we continued north on I-5 with a quick stop in Fife where the RV dealer is located. Our replacement seat cushions were not in yet. From there drove up to Fall City, Washington to the Tall Chief RV Resort to camp for the night.

Just as quickly as I setup camp, we climbed into the Blazer and headed off down the road. Our first stop was what the boys (and Cricket) had been looking forward to, Nintendo America. Lucas' DS game had quit working a few months ago and needed to be replaced. They didn't have a tour or anything but their service area did have a display case with all the the old Nintendo game consoles in it. The people there were really nice and they exchanged Lucas' DS unit out with another. They also gave the boys a huge Super Mario poster, not that we have any place to hang it. But it can go into the motorhome basement for now.



Across the street, around the corner, and pretty much everywhere were Microsoft buildings. They have a huge complex that took up several blocks. It took us a while of driving around, but we finally found the visitors center. The bad news was that there really wasn't a "visitors center" unless you already knew somebody who works there who could get you inside. They could have at least had a visitors center with old computers showing the history of Microsoft Windows, etc. I think I'll write them a letter.

So we left Redmond and headed downtown to Seattle.

First let me say that Seattle's traffic was horrible! Other than that, it wasn't so bad. We headed over to the Space Needle which was constructed for the World's Fair. From the observation deck you can get a great 360 degree view of Seattle. One of the nice things about it too was that they have guides at the top who every ten minutes will talk about different parts of the city while you're looking at them. This way we knew about what we were looking at and where places were located.



After that we drove around a little bit down by the piers before heading back to the motorhome. Just before we reached the RV, we stopped at a pizza place in Fall City for dinner.

Well that's it for today. Tomorrow hopefully the cushions will arrive and we'll be heading further north.

See you back soon,
Mark



Inside the capital dome:


Adam and Lucas playing a Nintendo game at Nintendo:


Views of Seattle: